i didn’t know this, but if you go into your uber app, you can find out that drivers rate you as well. and i’m a polite muth f*cka, so i though, ok, let’s find out how awesome these jerks think i am. and i got a 4.89/5. which means some snot nosed punk ass didn’t give me a 5! what the actual crap, uber? which brings me to my new corporate sponsor! ‘Uber, cause a stranger is just a friend that rates you based on a brief interaction, and who hasn’t had a proper background check’

it’s interesting though, cause it puts me in mind of other social networking sites. there was a brief lived, and heavily mocked application that was marketing itself as a sort of ‘yelp’ for people. sign up, find a person, give them a rating and a review. and seeing as how we all know yelp has never been abused by petty people with an axe to grind, what ever could go wrong? well, the app got crushed under the weight of bad publicity, which is a bit of poetic justice that was lost on the creators. but more than that, it gave people an insight into how this was kind of a terrible/natural evolution in our desire to manage things. improve with criticism.

honestly, i think this kinda thing was pioneered with ‘slam books’, something i recall the more evil kids doing when i was a tyke. you take a notebook, put names and mean little questions in it, and pass it around from kid to kid. they would write nasty shit in it about anybody and everybody. i mean, there was no internet yet, and someone had to start cyber-bullying already. the technology just hadn’t caught up yet!

Black Mirror S03E01- Nosedive

past readers may remember my fondness for a little show called black mirror. which is more like a series of very clever movies, dealing with technology and media.

this episode in particular is germane to what i’m talking bout. it takes place in a future world where everyone is rated, constantly, on every interaction. and this cumulative rating dictates what kind of opportunities you can have. it’s kinda like 1984, if everyone was big brother. nothing is honest, and people pretend to get by.

but check it out, it’s a sort of polite dystopia. and without the lasers and robots, so what’s even the point?

i was going to end this post with a mini rant about a youtuber i heard of, that jumps off buildings to wow idiots on the internet, who turned to crowdfunding to cover the cost of his inevitable medical bills. however, on further investigation, it seems that his efforts to get you fine people to pay for it are failing, and all is right with the world. hey, i don’t wish anyone any ‘specific’ harm, but if you mess up your feet being a dumbass, well, darwin had a theory, it was a good one.

with that, i’ll announce my marathon drawing weekend coming up, please visit my patreon, and donate generously. there’s a chance i won’t walk away from this one, and could in fact shatter both my wrists…. but it’s unlikely.